Sherlock's Fears
by Runa93
Summary: A wager between the Doctor and the Master. A joint fic with KCS! Now COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Watson is going home one night after an evening spent at his club, about eleven days before Halloween. As he passes Mycroft Holmes's rooms in Pall Malls, he sees the elder Holmes standing outside and cordially calls him in.

After they exchange pleasantries, Mycroft inquires about the incoming holiday, and asks what Watson is planning to do knowing well both Holmes and Watson's mischievous streaks. Watson admits he was planning to frighten Holmes, but is unsure how exactly to do it.

Mycroft writes down a list of Holmes's ten greatest fears, saying to use it as he will. Watson is quite delighted with it and, after thanking Mycroft, hurries home to Baker Street. There he finds Holmes lounging boredly in front of the fire.

Sherlock Holmes is extremely skeptical of Watson's ability to scare him, and a wager has been laid. Watson has ten days preceding Halloween to scare Holmes. If he succeeds, Holmes has to promise to take a week long holiday, with him to the location of Watson's choice. If the Doctor loses, he has to write his next story under Holmes's dictation.

Innocent bystanders, take cover-for starting tomorrow the bet is on!

**Now this is just a teaser. Wait till we get the next chappie up. Meanwhile does anybody have any suggestions for the first fear? PM me and please don't leave it in the reviews, that'll give it away. **


	2. Chapter 2

"You're late

**10. Dolls**

I sneaked into the hall of the flat like an schoolboy playing hooky, glancing at the coat stand. Ah, good, Holmes's ulster and hat were still gone – he had not returned yet.

I set my packages down while I unbuttoned my overcoat, a smirk crossing my face at the thought of the first one of Holmes's fears. I did not even wish to know how a chap growing up with only one brother, no sisters, would possibly have acquired this fear (I suspected a rather nasty young Mycroft), but so be it.

As I mounted the steps to the sitting room with my purchases, I absently reflected that this little bet was likely to take more out of my pocket than it was worth…unless Holmes could actually be frightened as I was hoping.

I had not told Holmes that Mycroft had also laid me a small wager that I would not be able to accomplish the feat. I had a double incentive to prove both Holmeses wrong now.

Holmes was still out on that robbery, finishing up the details with Gregson, and I knew he would shortly be returning with an appetite; usually the trend after he finished a case was that he would suddenly eat everything in sight after having starved himself for days. I was glad this habit took place only after the denouement of the cases, since making it a regular habit was probably why Mycroft looked the way he did…

So instead of the dinner I knew Holmes would be wanting, I took the items from my bags and began to arrange the half-dozen or so toys upon the table, a snigger crossing my face.

Dolls. Sherlock Holmes, afraid of a little girl's plaything.

It was going to be rather funny, well worth what I paid for them even if they did not truly frighten my dear friend.

I had at least six or seven of them, all with large glassy eyes staring straight at the sitting room door, just waiting for the detective to come walking in.

Which he did, a half-hour later.

"Watson, did Mrs. Hudson get supper ready yet, or would you like to – _**YIPE**_!"

There could be no other word to describe the choking yelp that escaped Holmes's lips as he blew in the door, tossing away coat and hat and glancing at the table to see if dinner had been laid, retreating back into the hall at the sight that met his eyes.

I howled with laughter; for his startled reaction was indeed the most hilarious thing I had seen in a long time, as he finally cautiously edged round the outside of the room as if trying to avoid the large glassy eyes following his furtive movements.

However, I had to admit that his reaction was not actually fear – I had startled him, not frightened him.

Ah well, there was always tomorrow and the second fear.

Holmes's face was red with mortification as he realised how close he had some to giving me what I wanted, and he glared daggers at me, starting to sit in his armchair, casting a wary glance at the dolls upon the table.

Then suddenly he screeched and yelped again, jumping a foot into the air as he sat on one final doll's porcelain body.

I ducked as the toy came flying at my head and he disappeared crossly into his bedroom, leaving me clutching my sides with glee.

Now, for tomorrow…


	3. Chapter 3

"You're late

**9. Spiders**

"Now, Doctor, you do understand that I cannot be held responsible for Mr. Holmes's reaction to your…pets, shall we call them? Are you certain you are willing to take the risk of losing them?" Watson asked warily as the cab clopped back to Baker Street.

Dr. Berthelot Rosewood, explorer and scientist and old friend of Dr. Watson, looked back at him with a small smile below his ample mustache.

"I have many more of the same species, Doctor, and these are both male; I retain the females and several more of the males in my laboratory. I have no objection to your taking these two to use in this…what did you say it was, a prank? Against your friend Sherlock Holmes?"

"A bet, actually."

"I see. And your friend suffers from arachnophobia?"

"Most definitely," Watson replied with a grin.

"I certainly hope his heart is not weak, then, for these are no ordinary spiders," the explorer said thoughtfully, glancing down at the box he held on his lap.

Even Watson, who had no aversion to crawling things, had been somewhat unnerved by the sight of the two enormous South American tarantulas, with their hairy orange and black bodies…and both the size of large dinner plates to boot. Sherlock Holmes's reaction was very likely to be far less passive.

"Pretty little things, aren't they?"

"Not exactly, Rosewood."

The explorer laughed, resting a hand casually on the lid of the box as the cab turned into Baker Street. "It was good of you to invite me along, Watson – this study should be instructive. Perhaps I should write a pamphlet on the reaction…"

"I rather believe Holmes would kill me if you did," Watson said dryly, "but it was the least I could do since you were kind enough to lend me some of the spoils of your recent expedition."

"I say, isn't that your friend there, just getting out of that carriage?" Rosewood asked, peering out the front of the cab.

"Confound it, he wasn't supposed to return until this afternoon – Lestrade must have been more insufferable than usual," Watson exclaimed in high annoyance. "Now what are we going to do?"

After the door of 221B had shut behind the unsuspecting detective, Watson and Rosewood exited their cab, paid the driver, and strolled casually up Baker Street towards the house, stopping a ways down the street so as not to be seen from the sitting room windows.

Watson glanced up, saw a shadow pass in front of the blinds, and then the window cracked open in Holmes's bedroom – apparently the detective was taking advantage of the cool autumn breeze. Watson's eye traveled from the open window to the drainpipe adjoining the opening…

"Rosewood, do you think they would climb that pipe without falling off?"

"Mm, yes – but if you're wanting them to go in the window the trellis is a better bet," the man replied, "they're liable to just keep going to the roof if you use the pipe."

Watson's eyes gleamed, and Rosewood laughed, setting the box on the ground and removing the first of the two monstrous arachnids.

Watson repressed a shudder at the long, hairy, twitching legs, and the explorer placed the thing on the trellis as high up as his arm would reach; the tarantula began to climb up the lattice with a rapidity that was almost frightening in itself. The second of the species soon followed suit, and after a few minutes of wrong turns the massive spiders disappeared into the open window, no doubt seeking the warmth from within – being used to the clime of South America, the fog of London had to be shocking.

Watson darted for the front door, the explorer at his heels, and no sooner had they reached the hall inside and shut the door than they heard a frenzied shriek from upstairs and then a very loud shattering crash.

"I take it he's found the first one at least," Rosewood said dryly.

Watson was trying to stop laughing enough to answer when they both jumped at the sound of a loud explosion.

"What the devil!"

Gasping, wiping his eyes, Watson replied, "He's – he's trying to shoot them!"

Another gunshot.

Rosewood's eyebrows shot up to chase his receding hairline, and the other was close to howling with laughter as another yelp echoed through the house and rattled the gas-lamps in their sockets.

"Holmes? Is everything all right up there?" the Doctor bellowed, getting his mirth under control for long enough to call up the steps before dissolving into another fit of laughter.

There was a furious pounding of feet in the rooms upstairs, and then a door opened and slammed back against the wall.

"I'm going to kill you, Doctor!" the irate detective yowled.

"I seriously doubt you have any bullets left in that gun, Holmes!"

"Step into the light and I'll _show_ you!"

"Erm, Watson…" Rosewood began uncomfortably. The other grinned calmly.

"It's quite all right, Rosewood. Though I wouldn't count on getting your pets back – if he is standing there calmly –"

"_Calmly_!?"

"For him, yes, calmly. Standing there yelling at me and not watching behind him, that means the creatures no longer pose a threat. I do apologise for your loss."

Rosewood shouted with laughter as Holmes erupted into what was apparently a bout of colourful swearing in a language Watson did not recognise.

"It was well worth sacrificing two of my beauties," the man gasped, wiping his eyes and backing toward the door as the detective's vociferations grew louder and nearer down the stairs, "but I believe now would be a good time to beat a hasty retreat. You coming?"

Watson took one look at Holmes's livid face as he jumped down the rest of the steps and hastily pushed his old friend outside, slamming the door behind him and waiting until they had reached the cab to collapse, weak from laughter.

"Does that mean you won the bet?" Rosewood asked with a chuckle.

"I'm afraid not," the other replied, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, "Holmes will just tell me he was not truly frightened, just startled – and I have no way of proving otherwise."

"Ah, that's too bad."

"No, not at all," the Doctor replied with a twinkle, "just wait until you see what I have planned for tomorrow!"


	4. Chapter 4

"You're late

**8. Women**

Dr. Watson walked slowly down Oxford Street, thoughtfully biting his lower lip as he contemplated the method to be used in his next attempt to frighten Sherlock Holmes.

The detective had finally seemed to realise that this bet was not going to be as easily won as he had anticipated upon accepting it; in consequence of the last two (rather effective) tricks, he had taken to very carefully watching for Watson's next move, locking his door and carefully deducing where the Doctor had been upon his returns to the house in Baker Street.

This living in constant keyed-up tension had in turn made Holmes rather irritable, and Watson was beginning to wonder if the drama was worth the price. Still, a bet was a bet and could not be backed out of. Now, to put into play the third phobia his friend possessed.

The Doctor smirked, anticipating his friend's reaction to this next prank. Mycroft's list was rather odd, but certainly amusing, and as long as the tricks did not become harmful to the detective they could remain highly entertaining. He smiled when a familiar lad skipped up to him out of an alley, grinning like a smug cat who has discovered a broken milk bottle.

"Everything in order, Alfie?"

"Yup, Doctor. Everythin's ready an' waitin' for yew. Blimey, is Mr. 'Olmes gonna flip 'is wig when 'e sees this one!"

"He is in, then?" the Doctor asked, glancing at his pocket-watch.

"Sure is, Doctor. Oi gotta be gettin' 'long now, but don' forget ta tell me what 'appens!" the lad shouted, running off down the pavement after a wealthy-looking man whose wallet was extending a bit too enticingly from his pocket.

The Doctor made a point to look the other way and then continued on down the street, turning onto Baker Street and then the alley nearest the house, where the participants in this third attempt to win the bet were awaiting him.

Before entering the alley, Watson glanced up at the windows of 221B. He could see no sign of Holmes, but that meant nothing for the man was always on the alert in his absences now. No doubt he was hiding in the sitting room with a stiff drink and a revolver after the last prank yesterday, driving himself insane with wondering when the third blow would fall.

The Doctor grinned to himself and turned into the alley, where he was met by over a dozen eager young women ranging from barely seventeen to a few years older than himself. All of them he had met through the rather silly female fan mail of the _Strand_ magazine, and all of them were more than eager to meet Mr. Sherlock Holmes in _any_ circumstances and under _any _conditions.

And when the Doctor told them all that Mr. Holmes would be more than happy to take one of them to dinner every night for the next two weeks, and that it was up to each lady to convince Mr. Holmes which of those days she would like (by any and all means possible), the ecstatic shrieks from the group of women were so loud Watson winced, afraid that the detective would overhear…how could he not?

Watson grinned at the excited group of infatuated women and then headed for the door of 221B. In case Holmes was watching, he had left instructions for them to wait one minute before following, to give him time to draw Holmes's attention away from any outside windows.

The Doctor mounted the seventeen steps after leaving the front door ajar, and knocked on the locked sitting room door.

"Who is it?"

Watson nearly laughed at Holmes's high-pitched, wary tone. "For heaven's sake, Holmes! Unlock the door!" he called in amusement, at the same time motioning for the line of women to tiptoe up the stairs behind him.

"Someone is here to see you, my dear fellow!" he called again through the door when Holmes muttered something unintelligible. "We met in the hall downstairs and I brought them up with me. Now open the door, old man!"

The Doctor heard a short oath and the clattering of a poker being dropped back into place by the fire. With a grin, Watson nodded to the excited group of young women and then stepped back to watch the pyrotechnics.

The lock snapped back and the sitting room door opened with a creaking of hinges, to reveal the detective in his grey dressing-gown and minus his collar (which only served to further excite his uninvited guests).

"Where have you been, Watson, I – _**augh**_!"

Holmes's last scream and yelping for help was completely inaudible over the clamour that erupted in the hall as the detective was fairly shoved back into the room by a wall of shrieking _Strand_ devotees, all eager to lay eyes (and hands, too) on the cowering detective.

"**Watson**!" Holmes howled as the women scattered round the room, some of them looking at his pictures, a few twanging his violin strings, one of them going through his file cabinet, and the majority of them patting his arm and cooing over him, saying Sidney Paget never did him justice in those illustrations, he had so much more hair and was so much taller in real life, etc., etc.

"WATSON!" the detective bellowed desperately in the voice that would make anyone but his only friend shrink in their shoes.

Watson was unable to hear, for he was in the hall laughing nearly hysterically at the chaos that had exploded in the calm bachelours' domain. Holmes fought off the affections of a rather young woman with a head of fiery red hair and tried to retreat into his bedroom, only to find two of the girls in there squealing over the portraits of famous criminals that adorned the walls.

The poor detective dodged a blonde who wanted his autograph on her copy of the _Strand_ and slammed the door on the group of gaggling females, turning a furious eye on his sniggering companion, who had been calmly leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette and watching the entire fiasco.

Watson stopped laughing for just a moment, wiping his eyes, and glanced at the irate detective.

"Well, I _said_ someone was here to see you," Watson said, his hazel eyes alight with pure mischief.

Holmes glared at his friend menacingly.

"You've got powder on your sleeve," the Doctor pointed out helpfully.

Holmes blushed to the roots of his hair and frantically rubbed at the substance before turning a venomous glower back to his still-chortling biographer.

"You're going to have to do better than that, Watson," he said with a wicked gleam.

"Oh, I _will_, Holmes," his friend returned calmly, but equally wickedly, "I certainly will."


	5. Chapter 5

After four more days of endeavouring to frighten the world's only (apparently fearless) private consulting detective, Watson was forced to admit that he was beginning to grow slightly uneasy regarding the outcome of this wager he had entered.

His fourth attempt, Mycroft's suggestion of forcing Sherlock to listen to a violin concert be butchered beyond recognition, had met with mediocre success – an explosive reaction, yes, but not true fear. When questioned about the idea, the older man had merely shrugged, said that Sherlock had become near hysterical as an adolescent when his ears were so desecrated, and then went grumpily back to his (oversized) sandwich and financial paperwork.

The next two endeavors fared no better, though they were highly amusing to the parties Watson had enlisted to aid him in his increasingly frenzied efforts to win this dubious wager.

Mrs. Hudson had been most cooperative in her part, and Sherlock Holmes had returned from a case one afternoon to find the entirety of his belongings stacked neatly on the front stoop and boxed up in the hall downstairs, with a curt notice that he was being evicted for destroying the carpet under the sideboard a week prior (when a forgotten magnifying lens had caught the sunlight and set fire to a spilled glass of brandy).

That time, Watson thought ruefully afterwards, he had really believed Holmes had been taken in, so frantically was he trying to make the good woman relent. Their landlady could bully with the best of them, and the performance was so well-executed that it could be heard down the street, according to the cab-stand at the corner.

However, the dear woman had spoilt the entire charade by bursting into a fit of giggles when the detective finally all but groveled at her feet, begging her to let him repair the damage and for the love of mercy to please change her mind.

Listening in the lady's parlour as she suddenly began to giggle, Watson sighed dismally at Holmes's stunned silence and subsequent explosion of words that he would have knocked another man down for saying in front of a lady. Mrs. Hudson merely laughed and then told them both sternly to "stop that ridiculous pranking and get your things upstairs this instant."

Thoroughly cowed, they both obeyed, and did not dare bring up the subject again.

That evening, after Watson's kindly offer to call off the bet was repelled by an angry outburst (one that ended with a vow that the Doctor would win _over Holmes's dead body_) dinner became ever-so-slightly strained.

The sixth fear that Mycroft had listed, that of an embarrassing childhood incident being revealed in a public setting, was rather easy to concoct and perform. Half of the force of Scotland Yard were more than keen listeners, and Mycroft Holmes (after being blackmailed by the Doctor into helping him, by way of threatening to bribe his cook to burn breakfast every day for a month) was forced into the position of storyteller. With a rapt audience, the older man detailed with unusually animated relish an occasion when a six-year-old Sherlock Holmes decided he wanted to run away with the golden-curled girl (of the mature age of five-and-a-half) of a neighbouring squire, whereupon they had made it into the next county on one of Mr. Holmes, Sr.'s horses before Mycroft got around to telling his father what his idiot of a brother had done.

Sherlock Holmes's reaction to coming into the Strangers' Room of the Diogenes just upon the tail end of that anecdote got him, Watson, and even the Founding Member suspended for two weeks for inappropriate behaviour and excessive noise. Granted, the Doctor's smirk and query (to the effect of would Holmes like to call the whole thing off and default from the game) merely poured more oil upon the flames.

After that painful (and embarrassing) incident, Watson received no further help from the quite incensed elder of the Holmes siblings. Upon asking for suggestions regarding the next fear, Mycroft merely told the poor physician that the Doctor was simply not ruthless enough to _truly_ frighten his hellion of a younger brother. The older man took great glee in pointing out that there were only four fears left, and that the prize was fast slipping from Watson's grasp.

Part of the older man's opinion of his determination to win _at any cost_ might be true, the Doctor was forced to admit the next day; for he indeed felt a more than slight pang of remorse when Holmes had truly panicked on the seventh fear, after chasing a pickpocket (paid by the Doctor and supplied by an enterprising little Irregular) over the roof-tops of London and, without warning, finding himself at the edge of the highest tenement in the district, a straight four-and-a-half-story drop below him to the cobblestones of a dingy alley and no railing around the roof-top edge

Watson and Mycroft consequently had some words over that incident, because when the elder Holmes had written "fear of heights" the Doctor did not take it as the kind of fear that could turn the unshakable Sherlock Holmes's face a shade that matched his eyes, and that would cause the man to be ill and shaky the rest of the evening – more like sickness than actual fear.

Yes, Holmes had quite breezily told him at least three times to "do his worst," and yes, all was fair in a wager - but even so, Watson vaguely felt that before the bet was over things might get slightly out of hand.

But when he brought the subject up to a much-recovered Holmes that night over sherry and cigars, the detective snorted. "Losing your nerve, are you, Watson?"

"It is not _my_ nerve I am concerned with losing," he retorted, pointedly indicating without a single motion the events of the afternoon.

Holmes waved an impertinent hand, repressing a yawn. "I congratulate you on your mediocre success so far in bruising my pride, Watson, but may I remind you that you have yet to truly instill fear in me." Grey eyes glinted conspiratorially, and Watson well knew that look of defiance and the futility of arguing against it. "The bet is still on, Doctor. Unless you would like to accede?"

Watson matched his defiant glare. "Well, then, if that is the way you want it...then you cannot say I did not warn you, Holmes."

"Your chivalry does you credit, my good fellow, but is entirely unnecessary." Holmes grinned and lifted his glass. "May the better man win, then."

As the glasses clinked, Watson only wondered if winning by such underhanded methods truly made one the better man.

**A/N: We apologise for the extremely late update *looks sheepish* Um, this might be finishing in a different way from what KCS and I intended in the beggining but it really isn't that easy to scare Holmes, which we realized too late. Hope you enjoy the story!**


	6. Chapter 6

Unfortunately, as a result of the incident on the roof-tops, Sherlock Holmes became much more wary of Watson and anything he touched.

Granted, there had been prank wars in Baker Street before (one of which had begun on April Fool's one year and escalated well into the last week of May, until Mrs. Hudson had demanded a cease-fire or that they both could jolly well find other lodgings), but never had the Doctor felt such distrustful eyes upon him at all hours of the day (and night, too).

Perhaps he _was_ losing his nerve, or at least the heart and stomach for the business.

Luckily for the bet's sake, Holmes realised this fact and, with a few well-chosen snide remarks (the chiefest of which was a nasty jibe regarding one of Watson's as-yet unpublished stories) provoked the Doctor into squashing what sympathy might have reared its head and raising the standard again for the remaining three days' battle.

The clashed swords for the eighth time that evening.

Earlier in the day, Watson had finally called in a few favours that Scotland Yard owed him, and Inspectors Lestrade and Gregson were only too glad to work together in compliance, to get the better of the man who had so often publicly humiliated them both.

That afternoon, the Doctor returned from the post-office to find both Yarders about to leave with Sherlock Holmes on a case; the bet and their verbal warfare of earlier apparently forgotten, he was promptly bundled into his hat and coat and the waiting four-wheeler.

The case was legitimate enough, save that it had been solved five hours _previously_ and been carefully recreated this evening, with a few key details altered to throw the detective off the scent. While Watson was usually not capable of making Holmes's deductions for himself, he did know what kind of minutiae would completely alter the trajectory of the detective's conclusions, and between his knowledge and the Inspectors' willingness to re-do paperwork, they had created quite a little miniature conspiracy.

In consequence, Sherlock Holmes solved the case in less than a half-hour, whereupon he calmly shot down any and all arguments regarding his conclusions, negating the possibility of the Yarders' theories, and stalked arrogantly off toward Baker Street.

Two hours later, the _Evening Standard_ was published with an account of the case, with the exception being that the theory which Gregson had been postulating the entire afternoon to deaf ears was proven beyond doubt to be correct.

Watson almost – not quite, but almost – regretted that particular fear's consummation when Holmes stared at the article, promptly raced out to get every other evening paper on the streets, and then spent two hours morosely pondering their contents, pacing the floor, and generally kicking anything that got in his path.

However, though the Doctor knew Holmes's self-confidence had been seriously damaged, he could not in all actual fact truthfully say that his friend was _afraid_ of being proven wrong. In fact, he looked more heartbroken than anything else, and were some of his earlier offensive remarks not still stinging in the Doctor's ears Watson might have almost felt sorry for the man.

He left the detective that night in the sitting room, wailing disconsolately upon his violin until well after dawn.

Only two fears left…he only had _two_ chances left.

Not good.

--

However, when the ninth day came and went, with absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening, even the detective's nerves of steel had thinned to a close snapping point. After sixteen waking hours of treading carefully in the flat, watching the Doctor every moment he was in the room (and having him followed when he went out, thanks to Alfie who was far more concerned with the color of Holmes's shillings than with complete loyalty to Watson's cause), and generally living on a needle's edge every moment, the consultant was keyed up to a tension so high Watson wisely said not a word to him the entire evening.

Finally, after he had ascertained that his opponent had truly had gone to bed, Holmes at last went into his own bedchamber and locked both doors, placing a chair under the hall door-knob, and tying one end of a muffler round the sitting room door-knob and the other around the leg of his wardrobe.

No one, and no_thing_, would get in his room without his knowing.

Why was that not encouraging?

Changing rapidly into his night-shirt and slippers, he wondered for a moment why Watson had not tried to frighten him at all today? Surely that meant he would shortly be slipping downstairs to make his ninth – next to last, thank heaven above – attempt.

Well, two could play at that game, and he smirked into the candlelit darkness before removing the chair from the hall door and pushing back the lock. Then, lighting his darkest pipe in the candle (actually he had just located the pipe at the bottom of his wardrobe, still with tobacco in it from where it had been lost a week ago in the tarantula fiasco), he slid between the cool, inviting sheets; sitting with his back against the headboard, and waiting for the Doctor to, as he had instructed mockingly, _do his worst_.

Moonlight shone silvery through the crack in the blinds, filling the room with more shadows than light, and each creak of the house and settling of furniture in his room was cause for false alarm; when one of his jackets fell suddenly from a hanger in the wardrobe he nearly embarrassed himself by yelping, covering the sound only just in time.

To pass the ghostly minutes, he allowed his mind to wander on a controlled track, back through some of his early cases. Of course the most unforgettable one of those had been the Stoke Moran affair, with Grimesby Roylott and his horrible pets.

Holmes shivered and puffed furiously at his pipe until his nerve quieted and he could hear above the heartbeat in his ears once more. Then, sighing, he extinguished the pipe so that Watson would think he was fast abed, and after setting it on the bedside table scooted down and laid his tense head on the comforting softness of his pillow.

A pillow which, he suddenly realised, he was sharing with _something_.

Something that hissed. And slithered.

--

The Doctor had, through the stress of the last few days (and the toll upon his pocketbook), been working overtime in his capacity of locum for a Paddington practitioner, and as such had been rather exhausted that next-to-last night.

After preparing the ninth fear, and feeling not a twinge of remorse whatsoever due to Holmes's provocation earlier ('a child in the fourth form could do a more intelligent job' of writing Holmes's cases, indeed!), he had retired calmly to his bedroom, and soon was asleep despite his intent to listen for the sounds of Holmes's discovering what loving elder brother had said was his second greatest fear.

In consequence, although the reaction that woke him was certainly that of terror, he had not been present at the time to _prove_ that it had been and Holmes insisted he had merely reacted out of reflex, not out of fright.

The all-out scream that had woken both Watson and Mrs. Hudson (and the neighbours on either side, probably) told differently, as did the fact that while explaining his 'shocked, _not_ scared' reaction to a skeptical landlady and slightly remorseful Doctor, Holmes's hands were shaking so badly that he dropped his seventh cigarette four times (which was an improvement upon the first six).

Mrs. Hudson glared at the both of them, muttered about being glad when the 'ridiculously juvenile bet' were over with, and toddled back off to bed.

After one last offer to call off the wager for the very last fear, and being brusquely refused for his trouble, Watson shrugged and turned to do the same.

Holmes eyed the closed door of his bedroom with its harmless – but still ghastly – occupant, and sighed mournfully, his pride most definitely refusing to ask Watson to remove the dreadful reptile. Then he stuffed towels from the bath against the cracks under the doors to block both room exits, and dozed miserably in his armchair the rest of the fitful night.

--

It was not until the next morning, the dawn of the tenth day, that Watson finally took a look at the very last – the greatest – fear; so busy had he been that he had only really checked the next one on Mycroft's list along the line.

He frowned now, seeing that the last fear had apparently been left blank at the bottom of the page, with the inscription _if by now you have not succeeded, come see me_ _for one final idea._

Half-past nine found him ringing the bell of Mycroft Holmes's flat somewhat nervously (since the man had been suspended from the Diogenes, he had been a veritable bear, especially this time of a morning). The man himself opened the door, and after a grumpy scowl allowed him entry.

"I take it you've had no success, then?" the elder Holmes inquired dryly, helping himself to a liberal portion of eggs and ham. "Breakfast?"

"Er…no, thank you," Watson replied quickly, standing ill-at-ease in the man's dining area. "And no, none to speak of. Your brother insists I carry out the last one, come hell or high water. He will not believe the wager to be won otherwise."

"In that case – pass me the marmalade, there's a good fellow – you have only one recourse left. Unless you wish to drop the whole affair?" Mycroft Holmes's eyes flicked sharply across the Doctor's face. "You look as if you no longer have the stomach for the business."

Watson flushed darkly. "I have never yet done what the fellows at the club call _welching_, on a bet, thank you," he retorted stiffly.

"Good." Mycroft smirked around his fork. "Then I do have one last idea for you to try, and one that is a positive _guarantee_ for you to win and Sherlock to lose. But you must be ruthless enough to try it, Doctor."

"Frankly, I cannot see how anything either of us could come up with would cause your brother to be _afraid_, Mr. Holmes. It simply isn't possible; there is nothing he is truly frightened of!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"No, it is not impossible, and there _is_ one way you can get him to admit, or else get inarguable evidence that, he is indeed frightened," the older man answered calmly, draining his coffee-cup.

"How, then?"

Mycroft lumbered to his feet and reached for his hat, his eyes fixing disconcertingly upon the Doctor, who suddenly felt a chill at the indifference in those frozen depths.

"You simply lead Sherlock to believe that you have been killed, or at least grievously injured, Watson. That, I daresay, will suit your purpose perfectly."


	7. Chapter 7

Five minutes after Mycroft Holmes had kindly but firmly escorted him from the flat and the bulky figure had disappeared around the corner toward Whitehall, Watson found himself standing on the pavement in Westminster, listening to the clock tower chime ten. Only when he was bumped out of the way by a hurrying middle-aged gentleman with greying hair and a foppishly ornate walking-stick (obviously a politician) did he realise he was still standing aimlessly rather in the middle of the walking path.

Sighing, he obligingly moved along in the flow of morning work-traffic and endeavoured to make sense of a situation that he knew now had spiraled completely out of control. What had begun as a slightly juvenile prank war, half to win the bet with Mycroft and half to keep Sherlock Holmes from resorting to his cocaine habit due to the abysmal boredom in the crisp autumn months, had taken a more sober turn than he had ever intended it to. Were he brutally frank with himself, he knew the wager was no longer worth the candle.

Yet, he had the wager's consequences to consider, and the fact that Holmes had, rather snidely, remarked that he did not believe the Doctor was capable of carrying it out to its fullest.

_And_ he had been intolerably rude about Watson's latest story. Being prohibited from publishing, and thereby from gaining any sort of audience, was horrible enough for a prolific writer; then for his sole reader to be so inexcusably offensive multiplied the sting in the tale a hundredfold.

The choice was a difficult one. Yes, the detective had practically dared him to do whatever it took – in essence giving his permission for all the demons of hell to break loose in Baker Street if so summoned. Holmes would have only himself to blame for the outcome.

To further trouble his irresolute mind, the fact remained that it would be absurdly simple to perform this last fear-inducement. He was as practical and medically-minded as Holmes was theatrical and melodramatically-, and the solution was no more difficult than to find a medico colleague at a local hospital, call in a small favour, and have the man send a bobby round to Baker Street with a note that he'd been involved in a terrible accident while out this morning and that Holmes had better come quickly. One conversation, one favour, one note, the use of an empty hospital room for one hour – no more complicated than that. It would involve no acting from him, and be all over in sixty minutes for Holmes.

And besides, the thought occurred to him as he turned his steps onto a more traveled thoroughfare in search of an empty hansom, one hour hardly began to balance the scales for _three years_ of a similar living nightmare, now did it?

--

Sherlock Holmes had spent the entirety of the day in a fit of nervous energy, after tearing his bedroom apart in search of that horrid snake when he cautiously entered mid-morning to find it _in absentia_. It was not until he espied a note affixed to the mantel with his correspondence, informing him kindly that Watson had let the thing into the back garden before leaving this morning, that he felt himself relax ever so slightly, enough to put the rooms back into something more resembling a gentleman's living quarters than a post-hurricanic disaster zone.

However, his unease only increased as the day crawled onward. Autumnal winds whipped about the house, causing it to curse and groan and emit all sorts of noises that _could_ be the Doctor returning to enact heaven-only-knew what as that last fear upon his person. Mrs. Hudson only sniffed disdainfully, when he jumped like a frightened rabbit as she entered with a luncheon tray and warned him to tell Watson if either of their 'shenanigans' caused her to lose sleep again, she would make them both sorry.

By late afternoon, he was beginning to wonder where Watson was, and why he hadn't returned to the house. He had not taken his medical bag, which meant he hadn't planned to go to work anywhere, nor had he taken his heaviest overcoat, which meant he had not planned to be out all day or to walk far – the chilly weather played havoc with his old wound, and more so because a storm front was brewing far above the city in a swirling mess of green-grey cloud.

In addition to the gloom both indoors and out, he realized after his forty-seventh round of pacing a path between the window and the fireplace that it was Halloween night. Not a pleasant night to be alone with one's thoughts, and more so when one never knew what sort of trap was lurking around the doors or the shadows under one's bed.

He was anything but a nervous man, but he had been forced the hard way to admit that the Doctor was a most resourceful antagonist. Granted, his sallies had been anything but artistic in form, but had been made all the more bluntly effective for their appalling directness.

But the most disconcerting thing of all, was that he could not fathom what might possibly be the last, and greatest, fear that his brother could have furnished – and that alone sufficiently frightened him. Try as he might, he could not come up with another item, childhood or otherwise, that could possibly be worse than the last few he had been subjected to.

The prize for this venture was certainly not worth the mental disquiet, though even jumping at branches scraping on windows was still preferable to ennui when it came down to a stiff comparison.

The storm burst with a torrent of equinoxial rains and a scream of thunder, around seven that night. Shivering, he ran a hand over his sleeve to smooth down goosebumps and rose to prod the fire into dispelling the damp chill. The half-hour struck, and then eight ghostly chimes between lightning-flashes, and then the half of eight tolled.

And still he had not heard anything from Watson, nor even knew where the man was.

He was just going to the window for the tenth time in as many minutes, in hopes of penetrating the shadowed fury beating against it, when the outer door downstairs opened and slammed quickly against the downpour. Sighing with relief, he quickly arranged his features from their worried concentration into an expression of ill-tempered lassitude, and reclined upon the settee with one eye cocked toward the door.

Two minutes later, it opened. Watson was drenched, limping, and obviously, if the splashes upon the cuffs of his trousers were any indication, had spent far more time _in_ the weather than _out_ of it.

He frowned, and drawled out a suitably smug "Where the devil have you been?" as it was nearing nine now.

Two weary eyes looked back at him from under damp hair and knitted eyebrows. "Out," Watson said succinctly, and moved past him to the fire.

He waited until steam had stopped rising from the hissing coals, and until the Doctor had stopped shivering quite so violently, to reply. "Yes, I had been able to deduce that for myself, Watson. Allow me to rephrase. _What_ have you been doing?"

Whatever he had been expecting, it was not a dejected slump of the shoulders. He swung his legs around as Watson turned toward him, and looked at the Doctor quizzically.

Finally the latter sighed, visibly trying to quell a fit of shivering. "You may stop regarding me so warily, as if I am going to don a rubber mask and hide behind your doors to frighten you," he answered bluntly, running a hand over his hair.

"Oh?" he retorted, with good reason. "And why am I entitled to drop my guard now?"

Watson dropped his gaze to the damp carpet beneath his boots. "The bet is off. I concede."

Surprised, for a moment he sat silently processing the fact. "That…is not what I was expecting, my dear fellow," he finally ventured cautiously. "May I ask why?"

The Doctor moved slowly, leaning on the mantel, over to his desk, and Holmes was not so foolish as to think his position, turned away from him as he rummaged through a drawer, was coincidental.

"Because, as you said, I am not capable of seeing it out," he responded flatly, yanking an unused journal from the drawer with more force than was merited.

Holmes blinked in blank disbelief, and reached mechanically to catch the book as it was tossed to him. "That was said merely to goad you into doing just the opposite, Doctor," he protested. "You cannot profess to think I was serious in that sentiment?"

"Evidently you were _correct_," Watson replied tiredly, moving toward the door. A sudden barrage of thunder upon the windows sent them both to jumping. "Be thinking of what case you want to dictate to me – those were the terms of the agreement, correct?"

Holmes tossed the book onto the floor (narrowly missing the damp patch) and stood, arms folded and lips pressed together in an unwavering line. "Not until you tell me what the last thing on that list was, Doctor. I find it hard to believe that the man I know better than I know myself could possibly back out on a bet without a logical reason." Watson paused, shivering hand on the door-knob, and sighed. He continued, less antagonistically. "Insults from me hardly constitute that, and a lack of nerve simply will not hold water as an explanation, not for you. No, Watson. The truth, now."

He had moved beside the Doctor as he spoke, curiosity burning in his eyes, and received an oddly calm look in return – the look of a man who knows he has made the right decision despite an unpleasant outcome.

"Well?" He gestured impatiently. "What was that last fear that my brother gave you, Watson?"

The Doctor folded his arms and leaned back against the oaken door. "He told me to make it appear to you that I had been either severely injured, or killed," he answered simply.

For a moment the words did not register, and then when they did his mouth opened slightly in utter disbelief. "He what?" he asked hoarsely.

"It would have been simple enough to do," Watson continued ruthlessly, staring at the flashes of light stabbing at the window. "And frankly, much easier done than some of those others. Just a note delivered by a mutual friend, borrow an empty hospital room for an hour, and there you have it."

He looked back to meet Holmes's stunned gaze, the lurking horror that was vying for dominance over disgust in those disturbed grey eyes, and smiled thinly. "But I know that fear all too well," he added, unconsciously glancing toward the fireplace, over which hung the foreboding painting of an all-too-nightmarish waterfall.

The detective found his voice in time to mutter an incomprehensible word or two, but fell silent at the ghosts that had suddenly materialized out of nowhere.

"And I won't do it," Watson finished softly. "I _can't_ do it."

"I…" Holmes stopped, swallowed hard upon the self-loathing he felt in the realization that he was far less a man than the one he was currently looking at. "…Thank you," he ended wretchedly, and had the grace to look properly ashamed at the unintentional rebuke.

He received a slightly sad nod, and then the door closed behind the Doctor. He listened to the damp shoe-squeaks ascending the stairs, and only when he had ascertained they had reached the top did he return to the fire, staring morosely at the blank notebook lying on the hearth.

Mycroft had been correct, of course…how correct! Holmes rarely regretted his actions, and he even more rarely apologized for them – and in this case he would do neither for deceiving Watson those three years; the man's safety, and his family's safety, during that time was not something he ever would or could jeopardize in any fashion, no matter if Watson was hurt by the deception or not. Watson was a gambler; he was not, and while his own life and safety were good enough prizes to cast upon the table, his friend's certainly were far too valuable.

But now he had won, by Watson's defaulting, and he could not deny a small, very small, amount of satisfaction at the knowledge that he had won the bet – tainted as it was by this gnawing ache that seemed to settle somewhere in his chest, a terribly distracting sensation from what should be, but was not, a flash of utter triumph. He had been quite right about this wager of theirs; Watson was _not _heartless enough to continue what had started as a fairly innocuous battle of wits and ingenuity in terrorizing his existence for ten days.

The question was now, how heartless was _he_?

--

Busy keeping Alfie running back and forth from the closest telegraph office for the next hour (after Mrs. Hudson had upbraided them both for keeping a child up past bedtime and given the lad a cup of cocoa and a slice of fruitcake to keep up his energies), Holmes had only just finished his plans for the night when, over the crack of lightning striking somewhere in the vicinity of Hyde Park, he heard the sixth bout of coughing in the last hour from the upstairs bedroom and could stand it no more.

After rapping sharply on the door, he entered without waiting for permission.

"You all right, old fellow?" he asked hesitantly, when the Doctor turned from where he was sitting, blanket-huddled, before his writing-desk. An open cheque-book lay beside a folded paper, and apparently Mrs. Hudson had also brought the man up some cocoa for a half-drunk cup steamed in fast-melting curlicues in the vicinity.

Watson sighed and, so smoothly an ordinary observer would not have noticed, hid the cheque-book under the blotter. "Tramping about in near-freezing rain is not, I admit, a healthy prescription."

"You would be warmer downstairs," he ventured in reply.

"Possibly." Watson looked away for a moment, and then sneezed abruptly, setting the cup rattling in its saucer.

"Bless you. What are you sending my brother?"

Scowling, Watson realised he should have known better than to think he could hide anything from his friend. "We had a bet as well, Holmes. I've no doubt he will be quite thrilled to know he won."

Holmes, making no answer for the present, pulled up the remaining chair with his foot and sat backwards on it, folding one arm across the top and with the other hand tossing the blank journal onto the table beside the blotter.

"Decided already?" Watson asked tiredly, rubbing a hand across his bleary eyes and reaching for the book. As he did, the blanket fell off his right shoulder.

Holmes reached out and quickly pulled it back up. "So to speak," he agreed, refraining from more than a slow upturn of lips as the Doctor nodded a mechanical thank-you and opened the book.

Two pasteboard rectangles fluttered down onto the varnished wood, and Watson raised a quizzical eyebrow his direction. He grinned. "I intend to claim my prize, Doctor – but only if you will accompany me. Southsea, I believe, is the focus of that travel guide you were rambling on about a few weeks back?"

"But –"

"Because technically, Watson," he continued, calmly interrupting the rising protest, "a bet only stands if _one_ party defaults from the agreement. When both do, the wager is nullified."

Seeing that his friend still appeared understandably dubious, he smiled quietly and laid a hand on the Doctor's wrist as he sat looking at the tickets. "Watson, I am not one for flowery or profuse apologies nor thanks. I recommend you accept the gesture for what it is, for I shall not make another." He grinned as the tension eased in the Doctor's face. "Besides, you did put a snake on my pillow, and a tarantula in my slipper," he added with an only half-mocking scowl.

Watson chuckled at last, and laid a hand for an instant over his own. "In that case, I shall be glad to accompany you, Holmes," he answered quietly.

He beamed. "Capital!"

Thunder suddenly boomed about the house like a cannon-barrage, causing them both to jump. Watson coughed hoarsely for a moment, waving off his inquiry of needed assistance, and finally subsided into a small moan, sipping at the cocoa on his desk and mumbling about needing tea with lemon and menthol and a few other ingredients Holmes only knew from botany textbooks.

"By the way," the detective added, sneaking the letter and the cheque it contained while the Doctor's back was turned, "I am not going to allow you to send this, you know."

"Holmes, I have an obligation – don't tear that up! Holmes, for pity's sake!"

He tossed the shreds into the wastepaper-basket and then turned a stern eye toward the chagrined face of his friend. "One, Mycroft does not need your money, and only made that bet to goad you into continuing this ridiculous escapade in the first place." He checked the point off on one long finger, and moved on to the next. "And Two, my dear fellow, Mycroft's laziness would shame the most obese sloth in the animal kingdom. He will never get round to claiming his payment."

Watson hid a smile at his unflattering comparison, and he continued briskly. "And even if he did decide to move his elephantine physique to come after this, I have absolutely no qualms in threatening to send Her Majesty's Cabinet a very interesting photograph and a few letters of my brother's in his younger – and slimmer – days, during a very promising and compromising situation with a neighbouring squire's daughter. You are not giving him a cent, Doctor, is that clear?"

"I promised, Holmes," Watson remonstrated with a fond look, writing out another cheque.

"Then tell him you won," he retorted sensibly.

But the Doctor remained stubborn. "I didn't win. I didn't frighten you."

"Actually, Watson…" He rested his chin atop his crossed arms on the back of the chair, and glanced down aimlessly to study the carpet fibres. "…you did. Don't look at me like that; I am perfectly in earnest," he added, glancing up at the skeptical expression. "Remember all those years ago, in the Jefferson Hope case? That discussion we had about imagination."

"It's the breeding-ground of horror," Watson quoted softly from memory. Then his eyes sharpened in understanding.

"Whether you carried that last 'fear' out or not in your little drama, Doctor, makes no difference. Just the thought of it is more than enough for me," he finished soberly.

Silence fell over the room, other than a sheet of fat, oily raindrops slamming into the window with the force of a railway locomotive. Finally Watson sighed, his gaze softening. "Still, Holmes, I don't –"

"Tell my brother you won," he interrupted, pointing a stern finger as he rose to his feet and shoved the chair somewhat back into position, "and we shall have lunch on the train at his full expense with the money. Now you'd best stock up on some throat lozenges and pack, Doctor; we leave at seven tomorrow."

"Seven?!"

"It is hardly my fault that you've not slept much due to this little spree of juvenility," he called grinning over his shoulder as he left the room. He heard a snort, and a low sneeze followed by a rather crude comment regarding the earliness of the hour. "_Good_ night, Watson!"

A head poked around the door-jamb, and he was favoured with a glare that dripped acid. "Good _night_," the Doctor retorted. "Oh, and Holmes?"

Smug, he paused in the doorway of his bedroom. "Hmm?"

Watson smirked. "Best check your room carefully before you go to sleep."

Aghast, he watched the door close on a snickering physician, and eyed his deeply-shadowed bedchamber with new-found horror.

Yes, he could definitely wait to pack until the early morning.

**All the credit goes to KCS for her hard work in keeping up these chapters...I just provided the ideas *grin*. Though this last chapter was entirely her own idea. **

**I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it! So....if you liked it....add a teeny tiny review ok?**

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